Metemphsycosis
by Necchan
Summary: Classic/Rockman X crossover. Shounen-ai. Proto/Mega, Zero/X. Character death. "The War is over. The Age of Megaman is over, as well"


**Title: **Metempsychosis.

**Author:** Nemesi.

**Fandom:** Rockman Classic x-over with Rockman X. (MM, MMX)

**Genre: **Angst/Tragedy. Romance/Family/Friendship.

**Word Count:**3189.

**Characters/Pairing:**Implied Protoman/Megaman, Zero/X. (but if you choose to read it as simple friendly/brotherly love, it works just as well…)

**Rating:** PG-13/soft R.

**Disclaimer:** Rockman, its characters, places and themes belong to Capcom, Shogakukan, Keiji Inafune, ShoPro, TV Tokio, etc.. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Warnings:** Shounen-ai (though, with machines, is it _really_ MxM? Aren't they _genderless_?). Character death. A little techno-babble. I tried to be accurate at first; then I noticed that the less technical I was, the more sense I made. *blushes*

**A/N:** There's a certain theory in the Rockman fandom, which I don't 100% agree with, but that was used as base for many, many fics, some of which are _really_ awesome. So I decided I'd try and explore that theory, if just once, and produced this. But of course, me being… well, _me_, I gave the story an absolutely odd twist, and expanded the theory into something I've never seen done before. Crazy? Me? Why, yes, I do my best! :P

Speed-written in an hour or so, and modified just slightly. This basically wrote itself. I'm not sure if I'm amazed or scared. O_O;;

**Summary: **The War is over. The age of Megaman is over, as well.

* * * * *

**H**e raises his head from the dust, and observes the wreckage.

Skull Castle lies in shambles around him – flame-blackened panels, torn beyond recognition by the blaze, rear up like fangs all around him. Wires and cables criss-cross the ground as far as the eye can see, red and blue, the veins and arteries of a bloodless metal body. Electronic components are scattered all around him: chips and switches, frizzling circuit boards, diodes and transistors, shards of crystal blinking through the smoke like soulless eyes.

Right beside him lies the latest of Wily's creation, his Ultimate Weapon, reclining as though asleep against a metal panel. The shards of his incubating capsule are spread about him, like a broken egg would lie sprinkled about a duckling or a newborn reptilian; and a like a newborn, the droid is covered in fluids, his armour and hair shining wet in the low light.

His face looks serene, almost peaceful. It seems carved out of ice or ivory – so white and flawless, but for the smudge of ash across his left cheek. His eyes aren't open, but neither are they close. Between the fine eyelashes, as white-gold as his mane, a hint of red is visible, the quickly-fading light of a diode, its colour as vibrant as freshly spilled blood.

He is beautiful, the vision of him as awing as it was meant to be in Wily's plans and dreams. But the vessel laying on the ground is merely a shell, perfectly crafted but _empty_, having been wrenched from his incubator before completion.

Megaman picks himself off the ground slowly, staggers forward and past the droid, swaying and stumbling, and the first coherent thought to cross his systems isn't, as one would expect: "The war is over." It isn't: "We're free." He opens his mouth, as though to scream. He opens his mouth and emits just a crackling of statics, since his vocal mechanism is too damaged to synthesize a proper sound. He opens his mouth, once more, and breathes:

"Protoman?"

Before falling in the dust again, this time on his knees, wracked by something akin to sobs or fever.

On hands and knees he crawls, making his way to were the red Lightbot lays. What little remains of him is an awkward mass of charred metal and torn cables. Half of his body has been severed, his visor shattered, his helmet cracked, so deep that oil-stained hair and wires are peaking from the gash, shivering in the wind. His once-yellow scarf is coiled about him like a malicious snake, red with body fluids and grey with ashes. The embers of a nearby flame are reflected on his face, glint off his eyes, making them shine a dull orange.

When Megaman's face – small and pale and pretty, despite the dirt, despite the blood, the oil, the cracks – enters his line of vision, he smiles, a pained and broken thing. He manages a sound – half whistle, half word – and Megaman collapses against his chest, heaving dry sobs, infant sobs, low and powerful.

Protoman hushes him, or tries to. His hand lacks the strength to be lifted and pat the blue helmet, but he wills it up, and upper still, to gently brush a soft, wet cheek. He can't smell the putrid scent of burned silicone and overheated copper wires, anymore. As his systems shut down, his senses are leaving him, one by one. And he feels a small measure of comfort that fate allowed him the capacity to feel Mega against him still, feel his weight and warmth and unique blend of hardness and softness that is his body. He thanks beings he is not sure he even believes in for this last chance to talk with Mega; he thanks them, even as his vision starts to blur at the edges and an ink-like blackness spreads across his eyes.

"I'll… I'll take you to Dr Light, Protoman. You'll see, he'll, he'll make you better, I know he will. He can fix your damage and…" Don't look at it, don't look at the damage, the oil-oozing innards, the steaming circuitries, charred wires, don't look, don't, _don't_, just keep talking, _talk_, it keeps the nightmares at bay, it chases away the sound of silence and failing machineries. "…and, once you're better I'll come with you to buy a new visor. You'll stay around long enough to hang out with me like you promised, wont' you? _Won't you_? We will go out for walks and I'll show you the city and you'll take me to the desert and the mountains and the ocean and the glaciers and all the places you've seen around the world, the places you love, the places where you go to when you leave me, but this time I'll come too, I'll come with you, I will, and Roll, she will have to wait for us back home, but she won't be mad, I promise, she will knit you a new scarf while she waits, even if she isn't that good, she will, she'll learn how to, for _you_, as she waits for us, and Rush, he will wait with her, and once we come back he will carry you, like he carries me, and together we all will…"

"Megaman." Protoman's voice is soft and weary, as though it knows all the ages of this world, and saw them pass. "I can't survive this." And it is a harsh truth, but delivered so softly, so gently, to turn the thought of the impending doom into a comforting one.

A kind of burning wells up inside Megaman's throat, and he shakes his head, a stubborn child.

"No! _No_! I'll take you home! And Dr Light will…"

"I wouldn't survive the teleportation." So soft and gentle, still. Comforting Megaman, as though he was the wounded one, the one needing to be healed, rather than Protoman himself.

Megaman's eyes grow huge and round in the pale oval of his face. It's the last thing Protoman sees, a lovely and heart-wrenching vision, before his opticals shut down, leaving him stranded in total darkness.

He forces a smile, gently trails his knuckles up and down Megaman's cheek, a tender caress.

"And you can't bring him here in time." Wheezing. Each word ripped out his throat like a shard of glass. "No. Don't…say anything… _Megaman_. My power imbalance… you know about it. It was… killing me, already. At least… at least I went down on the battlefield. At least… I was beside you. Protecting you. Just… go. Go back home. And forget about me."

"_NO!_" Protoman's hearing is dimmed, his hearing channels feel stuffed with cotton, but Megaman's cry shots through him in all its force, runs like a spike or blade, through his heart. "Protoman, no, _no!_" Stubborn little thing, shaking his head, so so quickly.

"Mega…" He can't feel Megaman's weight anymore, now. His warmth is gone, like something imagined. The softness of his cheek is but a memory. Protoman's tongue feels like laden in his mouth, too stiff, too heavy. "Mega…" he repeats again. Then, softly, as though to himself: "I love you." And knows no more.

For a moment, Megaman cannot move. His synapses struggle with the enormity of what has happened – Protoman dead. Protoman dead. Protoman. Dead. _Dead_ – and his small frame begins to quiver and jerk under the workload – Protoman Dead. Protoman. Dead. Dead. Loves me. Love you. Gone. My Protoman. Love you. Always. Gone. Always. Goneloveyoulovesmeloveloveforevergonealwaysgoneminemineneveragainprotoprotoloveyou_loveyou_…

It is in this state, that his eyes fall on the Wilyroid again, the perfection of him, red and grey and yellow like Protoman had been, the same colours, red for the armour, grey for the suit, and the flare of gold trailing behind him, a banner and a statement, for a machine whose power springs from an eternal source, like a fountain of youth, a machine impossible to shut down, but dead, dead because it is unfinished, because its beautiful form is _empty_, houses no conscience, no will, no thought process is running within the helmeted head, no personality peeking from behind the glass eyes, dead, like Protoman is, like everyone around them is, a beautiful corpse but a corpse nonetheless, dead, Protoman dead, the Wilyroid dead, dead, dead, _dead_…

* * * * *

Dr Light leaps from the couch when the unmistakable ozone whiff and the whistle of a successful teleportation reach him.

He speeds across the hall, barely aware of Roll springing from another room and falling into step beside him. He comes to the front door and throws it open, wheezing and gasping for breath, and the sight that meets his aged eyes is one he will never forget.

There stands his child, his creature, his machine-son, bent under the weight of Wily's ultimate creation, the angel-looking war-machine.

"Megaman?"

Green eyes peer up at him, wide and liquid with what cannot be – but _are_ – tears.

"Help him," the little robot pauses, voice cracking, the damage sustained by the larynx too heavy for his systems to work around it. "Please, Dr Light… _please_."

Dr Light doesn't consciously think his reaction through. He simply acts. He moves forward, takes the deceptively handsome creature from Megaman, and carries it gently but swiftly to his workbench.

Once there, he makes to connect the droid to his PC, and becomes aware of a cable already hanging from the connection port at the back of its neck. He tugs it away, unmindful of or uninterested in its meaning, and connects the creature to his main computer.

There's a flash of light as the monitor comes to life. The droid's eyes shot open, aflame with a light of their own, the minuscule reflection of coded data streaming across the flaring orbs. Surprised, Dr Light turns to question Megaman and gasps when, staggering, the little robot throws himself at the droid, clutches him like a mother would clutch her son, like a lover would clutch a lover, the petite frame of him twining and moulding about the droid's own, cradling, rocking, shielding the mud-caked thing so, so gently.

Just then, Dr Light's computer recognizes something within the droid's systems, and welcomes it in - welcomes it _back_ - issuing a sound like parading trumpets from the speakers. Dr Light needn't look at the script flashing with ever-pressing speed across the monitor to know who the computer is singing to.

"Protoman?" he whispers questioningly, reeling backwards as though physically stuck.

Megaman hiccups, shoulders rippling with barely-restrained emotion, presses his lips together and nods, almost imperceptibly.

Dr Light staggers towards the console, expelling a sound of mixed awe and despair. The computer confirms it: that's no Wilyroid, lying in all its splendour before him. The crimson vessel might be a work of his rival, but within resides Protoman's personality, his memory banks, his protocols and subroutines, all that made him what he was.

"You uploaded Protoman's persona inside Wily's droid?"

Megaman rubs his cheeks dry, smudging dirt across his nose. For several long moments, his voice is swamped with thermal noise, breaking and shivering, like an off-tuned radio. But even when the transmission clears, his tone remains small and sad and broken with sorrow.

"He was… Protoman was dying. His body had been destroyed, and his main systems were shutting down. And Wily's droid…" he looks down at the creature, caresses his cheek. A subtle joy suffuses his face, makes it glow more than a mere mortal could ever glow. "…he was also dead, but in the opposite sense. His body was undamaged, but there was no data or software inside him. And so I…" He trails off, expelling a dull noise from the back of his throat, something like a sob or the clang of a stuck clock.

Dr Light is awed. He's dismayed. Awed, because the uploading was successful. The computer already recognizes the Droid as the Zero model, which was Protoman's designation. And dismayed because…

"Somehow," he begins hoarsely, fingers crawling, like spiders or crabs, across the keyboard. "The Droid's processing unit accepted Protoman's OS, and they're interfacing. This _is_ my first creation, the Zero model. This _is_ Protoman. But…" he pauses, shakes his head, struggles not to break down and cry in the face of the hope, the pain, the _love_ he sees shining in Megaman's eyes. "…Protoman's working unit was far too different with _this_ to be fully compatible. It might take years, even _decades_, for the droid's systems to align with the personality program. And even if it happens, his data banks would be lost or corrupted. Which means…" painful, so painful, the lump in his throat burning like coals. "…that even if he wakes, he will have no memory of himself, or of us."

Megaman looks at him, not with the lost, dazed look of a child Dr Light was expecting, but with the serene calm of a saint or a seraphim. He is running his fingers through the droid's hair now, untangling it slowly and gently, humming a well-known tune under his breath.

"Not consciously maybe, but he will know us. And it will be _him_, inside this body, and he will be alive. This is all that matters."

He is glowing still, glowing with love and kindness, and all things Dr Light never programmed into him, things that are entirely human, and yet transcend that condition. He is a picture of piety and devotion as he cradles the droid like a precious infant, humming the lullaby Protoman has hummed to him in days long past.

Dr Light's can only gape, awed, but his awe dissipates quickly into new dismay. Suddenly, Megaman sways and falls, clutching his damaged throat. A greasy, reddish liquid wells at the corners of his mouth, streams down one nostril to his chin. Dr Light rushes to pick him up, arranges him against his chest, a life-sized doll, totally yielding.

Megaman gasps. Just once. Shudders as something inside him ruptures beyond repair. Electricity runs across his body, is discharged painfully on the floor below. Oil wells up at the corner of his eye, bubbles out from his lips, staining them black.

Megaman gasps again, quivering like a wind-wracked leaf.

System error.

Power failure.

Senses dimming,

touch,

taste,

smell,

hearing,

sight

failing him, one by one,

_one by one_.

He can't hear well, can't see well; he doesn't feel hot, nor cold. He's floating somewhere, only dimly aware of the light shining on his face, of his fingers tangled with Protoman's own, or the coarse hair of Dr Light's beard brushing against his cheek.

"…Dr Light?"

"I'm here, Megaman."

"X…"

Dr Light carefully cradles the child-fighter, rocks him gently, saddened and awed by the light he sees shining in those dimming, dying eyes. He cups the cooling cheek gently, offering comfort.

"What about him?"

"You haven't…" there is no noise coming from inside him, no visible gash on his body. Is it too much to hope, that there also isn't any pain? "…completed his personality program, have you?"

"No, Mega. I haven't."

"Then… use mine." He pauses. Then presses on, almost urgently, his voice a mere whisper. "Dr Light… when I'm gone, upload me inside X, like I uploaded Protoman inside the red droid." More silence. More liquid staining his lips, the swell of his cheek. "_Please_?"

Dr Light fights to push the words out of his mouth, fights to rein the tears in, and fails at both.

Reaching up, Megaman touches his face gently. His hand is cool. Not a living thing anymore — a mere piece of metal. So cold. But the tears, they feel so hot against Dr Light's cheeks. They burn his eyes, clog his throat, squeeze and rip his heart apart.

"Please, Dr Light. I want to be there for him, when he wakes. I want to be with him, no matter what."

Megaman looks away once more, that quiet delight coming back to his face at the sight of Protoman, the new form of him, red and grey and gold, always gold, the pale skin and the pretty eyes, such a lovely shade of blue now that the diodes underneath are off, blue as the crystal on his brow, as Megaman's own armour.

"We'll have a new chance at life, in a world without wars, a world that will accept us robots and not fear us." Dreamy voice, springing from those stained lips; dreamy eyes, in that dying little face. "Please, Dr Light. It would make me so happy. Please?"

"You won't…" he pauses, fights for breath. "Megaman, X's systems might reject your memory banks. You might not… remember him at all, Mega."

"I'll know him." His body jerks, fingers tightening as if after their own volition around those of Protoman in one last goodbye. "Like I knew him when he disguised himself as Breakman. Like I knew him from that fake. Please? I love him, Dr Light." So simple words, so sweetly voiced. They knock the air off Dr Light, drain the strength from his body.

Could he really? Could he really do this to his child? To both of them? Seal them away, trap them in a dreamless slumber, with but the vague hope to wake up one day, to a world were nothing of what they knew and loved still stood?

Could he… would he… give them this second chance? Would he allow them to be reborn, like the creatures in the Myths of old, in new bodies and in a new world, with no connection between them, other than the love they shared?

He wonders this, even as he cocoons himself around the little blue body in his arms, trying to shield and protect it in ways he never could. He wonder this, as he feels the metal child shudder and jerk, the spasms easing into twitches, then into mere shivering, this too weakening with each passing moment. He wonders this, and realizes that the choice was never his own to make.

When Megaman's last spasms ease away, and his body becomes still with death, Dr Light gently untangles his fingers from those of the Zero model and carries him to the capsule where X's half completed body lays, his clockwork innards exposed to the air, wires springing from his open chest, the joints of his arms, his waist, to which the lower part of him awaits to be attached.

He makes quick work of connecting Megaman's data banks to X's core. Watches as the almost-identical faces cloud with a jolt of something akin to pain, then slowly clear up in an ecstasy of wonder. X's eyes open up a fraction, when the connection flares to life. Be it luck or destiny, his head jerks, lolls to a side, allowing his eyes to meet the Zero model's own, imprinting his face, his form, his colours inside his mind.

When he will see him again, more than one hundred years from now, laying on a similar bench, in an entirely too similar laboratory, X will not understand the thrill of breathless joy that runs through him, nor will he be able to explain why he knows the Reploid's designation before Dr Cain or Sigma can tell him.

"Zero…"

**~*~****おわり****~*~**

_The "theory" mentioned above is that X is neither an AU version of Mega, created by an AU version of Dr Light, nor is he Mega's little brother; but he's actually Mega reincarnated/uploaded into a new body. No one before ever postulated (as far as I know) that Zero was Protoman reincarnated through a similar process, but it makes sense, doesn't it? *muses* They are the Red-chara of their respective universes, after all._

_On a side note - I didn't manage to make Zero complete AND active… story just wouldn't go that way at all. Besides, if X and Zero hadn't been clean-slates, the uploading of Mega and Proto's OS into them wouldn't have been a "metempsychosis" process. However, I can and do believe that Zero was active before the Cataclysm. I just don't agree with those who make him a bloodthirsty brainless thing. Inafune himself confirmed that Zero didn't kill "the family", which actually gives me hope my theory was the right one – that he WAS activated before the Cataclysm, but was actually a perfectly cool and collected droid. (Which might be why Wily had to infect him with the virus in the first place.) (Eh, aren't we full of parenthesis today?! XD;;)_


End file.
